TOM TRAVELS ALONE

We arrived back in Little River on December 1 and spent the following week in our usual routine: unload the motorhome, clean up, catch up on paperwork, etc. On Friday, Dec 7 we headed over to Florence, SC for our Carolina Pelicans'(local chapter of FMCA) Christmas Party hosted by Danny & Doris Dimmery. Bob & Ann Billups who live just down the road from Danny were gracious enough to allow all who desired to dry camp on their property--not sure why they don't just open a campground. Pictures are of Danny's tiny little barn (6,000 sf) and the pig on the cooker.

On the way to Florence on Friday I received a call from the Red Cross asking if I could go to Oregon for disaster relief. They wanted me to leave in 24 hours which I believed just wasn't possible so we agreed that Sunday afternoon would be acceptable.

Friday night we visited with the members of our group who were there and played some wild games of Mexican Train and drank Danny's home made wine. Good stuff!

Saturday found us at Applebee's for a Red Cross pancake breakfast and then back to Danny's to watch the pig cook. Had to leave before the Christmas party but Danny was gracious enough to provide us with an extremely generous portion of pig--one of my very favorite things. Arrived home about dark and with Thomas' help unloaded and winterized the motorhome. Also thanks to his generosity I was able to borrow just the luggage I needed for the trip.

Sunday found us ferrying the "Beav" to its resting place for the winter and me trying to make sure I had the proper clothing, etc. for the trip. This was my first deployment for the Red Cross and I found it to be extremely rewarding and interesting. Arrived in Portland around midnight EST and finally managed to get in bed sometime around 2:00am EST (11:00pm PST) and then reporting to the Red Cross by 8:00 on Monday morning. I was sent to fill a position in the technology portion of the operation but for reasons unknown to me, they were overstaffed so I was assigned to Health Services as their administrative assistant.

Most of my work was for the two managers of Health Services--Donna, a local volunteer nurse from Portland and Dianna, a national volunteer from Knoxville. We operated out of the headquarters in Beaverton, OR which was a very large warehouse with a small office space.

One day I did make it out to Vernonia, the site of the worst flooding. Believe it or not there was no looting or any of the shenanigans we saw after Katrina--only people helping other people less fortunate. It did bring back memories of Hugo when we were flooded--I don't even like to think about it!


The Red Cross had several other shelters and service centers early on in the relief operation but these were closed as soon as the immediate needs were met and other organizations stepped in to provide long term assistance.

In Vernonia, the Red Cross had both a shelter and a service center, both located at a sports camp. As you can see from the pictures, it was an extremely nice facility for this purpose. One slight drawback was that it was located on the side of a hill--not really ideal for your elderly clients.




































Mudslides continued while I was still there and at least one occurred after I returned home on the 19th of December.



Hurricane force winds stripped the trees and as you can see, these are not baby trees!



A good experience and I still made it back before Christmas even though I had been scheduled to be there through the 29th. As with any operation of this kind, there is always a rear party to close everything down and so there were some who didn't make it home for Christmas. There were also some who left Oregon to travel to the midwest where the Red Cross had yet another relief operation in progress because of the ice storms.

Until next time,
Tom

PS--I did see the sun for 10 minutes one day!